


Best Laid Plans

by Bond_Girl



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:54:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bond_Girl/pseuds/Bond_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>What would a golden boy with no plan and a bad boy with a master plan do when they have hots for one another?</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> • this is a before-the-writers-strike, early S1 fic;  
> • now I'd have probably rewritten the ending and gone easier on the feels, but at the time, this was how this story wanted to tell itself;  
> • betaed by worlddescending [lj] who was brave enough to read a fic from an unknown fandom; she put those pesky contractions in their right place;  
> • originally posted [[here](http://bond-girl.livejournal.com/6463.html)].

 

Hey Upper East Siders,

 

Gossip Girl here, your one and only source into the scandalous life of Manhattan elite.

 

Meet N or Nathaniel Archibald. The golden boy. Pretty vacant, passively rebellious, easily bored, sexually repressed but altogether a genuinely nice guy. He drifts through life with an heirloom Tiffany silver spoon in his mouth. He is the boy your mother wants you to marry.

Meet C or Chuck Bass. The devilspawn. A poster boy for the absolute power corrupting absolutely, manipulative, better than thou, keeping his mischievous eye on the prize and on how to get you out of your panties on the count of three. He is the boy your mother has been warning you about.

Nate has known Chuck since they were five. The first time they met, Chuck was a hurtling ball of energy - threw stones at Nate's blond head, then shared a cool toy, only to shove little Nate into the mud as he found someone else –- bigger -- to play a forbidden game that the nannies did not approve. Nate has been completely taken by those displays of rampant masculinity ever since.

Chuck has known Nate since they were five. The first time they met, Nate ignored him for full five minutes, which was four minutes too long for a Bass to bear. When little Chuck tried to woo little Nate with his best toy, Nate simply looked at him with those china blue eyes, unable to decide - Chuck's yellow racing car or Blair's blond Ken doll. Chuck has been fighting to win this tug-of-war ever since.

Nate has grown up to be that Ken doll. Often stoned, always the reluctant heartthrob. A graceful winner of battles that his good looks and Brahmin breeding secured for him. He goes through life in a faint cloud of smoke and faint attempts at pointless rebellion, as someone else makes decisions about everything - from his expensive shirts to his expensive college.

Chuck grew up to be a Bass (like in 'ass' or in 'bastard', you choose). Often charming, always a politician. He lives in a web of white lies and big secrets, little plans and big machinations, all destined to spin his wheel of fortune. He does not know any better than to steamroll through life from conquest to conquest, leaving debris and roadkill behind on his way to the top.

Best friends. Future captains of an industry which produces nothing but hot air, press, and numbers. Going side by side through the best schools towards a certain future of stylishly spending their trust fund and marrying beautiful money to expand those Archibald and Bass empires. Their life tickets have been punched.

Except by the time N and C get to be seventeen, something else punches them, in the gut. They both find out they have hots for one another. That is not part of the Master Plan.

Once, Nate reaches across a dark crowded limo for another glass of Laurent-Perrier and his hand lands on his friend's thigh instead. It is strong and slender, the only alive, warm contact in the car full of these cardboard cutout girls that Chuck always finds. Chuck turns to flash a handsome devil's smile and Nate's insides flutter. The car makes a sudden break for pedestrians, and so Nate's palm slips further up and along the wider, muscular part of Chuck's leg - and the unmistakable lust shoots through him, right to his groin, sparkles almost visible in the air. Nate is a man enough to know that he wants to crush that smile in a kiss and a boy enough to do nothing about it. He is out of that Streetcar named Inappropriate Desire as fast as his legs would carry him.

A few months later, Chuck is in the locker room after they shot some hoops. Nathaniel has hit the showers, solo. Nate's newfound obsession with personal privacy has been such a fertile teasing ground that Chuck is feeling like another prank. He heads into the steamy room to steal his friend's vine leaf of a white towel. Next thing Chuck knows, he has forgotten how to breathe. The water is streaming between the grooves of Nate's elegant back, towards his narrow hips and halves of a round ass, and down his long legs. The picture so perfect, so utterly together, it needs to be violated. Chuck has never sprung a boner faster in his entire life. He blindly pushes the button of another shower, looking for a sobering salvation of a freezing cold jet. Back at the Palace, Chuck orders cigars and a stack of gay porn DVDs, trying to fight fire with fire, but this does not help him any. It is wet dark blond curls plastered to the back of Nathaniel's neck that Chuck sees burned on the back of his eyelids when he cries out, coming into his palm. Acting on this Basic Instinct could be the worst idea since ignoring that overexposed ice pick.

\---

_Spotted: N and C thinking they have rotten cards and the worst poker faces when they both have a royal flush and an opponent who wants to lose. What would a boy with no plan and a boy with a different plan do?_

\---

Sometimes, Nate's fingers would stroke Chuck's skin softly and discreetly as if such physical contact is a-Ok between best mates. A warm palm spanning the back of Chuck's neck in a public display of affection, a snappy jock slap on the butt during those morning runs, a long ankle carelessly thrown across the couch and Chuck's lap while watching cartoons. Chuck would just try to hide a shiver and an instant, aching stir down below.

As for Chuck, he has taken to having sex with other people in Nate's presence, for reasons that are unclear to himself. Sometimes, when he is moving inside someone, his dark gaze is drawn to meet the blue stare of his best friend. This usually steals a shuddering groan-growl off Chuck's lips and makes his pale hips pump harder. Nate would just throw his head back and inhale more smoke, hoping this would blot the girl away from in his mind and replace her body with his own.

Some mornings they wake up, feet away from each other, in Chuck's spacious Palace suite. Chuck's eyes rove over Nate's tousled dark blond head and bare shoulders over on the couch, unaware of Nate watching his form through his long lashes in the reflection on the window. He usually hurls a pillow into Nate, through all this space full of longing.

This game of hide-and-seek could probably carry on until N and C would get separated by college and safely put more bodies (of a far more conventionally marriageable kind) between them, but life has other plans. Shit happens. Like Carter Baizen.

We all know Carter. An older boy who abandoned privilege for bad plaid and third world food. The gossip whispers that Carter has left the rat race circuit and lives an alternative lifestyle, the details of which reek too much of patchouli to be featured on this blog.

However, the prodigal Carter's brief return from the gutter to the Upper East Side sends ripples over the unnaturally still waters between N and C. Would we find out if those waters run deep? Would their friendship sink or swim?

Carter is alive, in a grungy sort of way, and Nate colors the stories of geographically impossible globetrotting and dubious humanitarian effort with wishful meaning. Too wholesome to tell the difference between lively and shifty, Nate is looking for truth in all the wrong places, like Carter's big eyes and that underground gambling invitation.

All this puts a stick in the spokes of the wheels of a carefully planned post-Ivy Week weekend of debauchery, which is sorely spoiled when Chuck's real date Nate walks off into the night in a huff. Chuck has a bad feeling about this but he knows that short leashes do not make for life-long friends. Nathaniel already has far too many strings attached to his slender limbs by his parents and Blair, making him dance like a puppet to pop songs he doesn't even like.

\---

_Spotted: N making a beeline towards the wrong C and the wrong side of the tracks._

\---

Carter is interesting. Different. He stares a lot. In a bar, he gets Nate a vodka shot. As Nate's pouting lips wrap themselves around the glass, Carter says something about seventeen and never been kissed. Over Nate's protests, Carter smirks, 'not like that', and kisses him roughly, tongue and all. Nate is taken aback only for a second, then returns the kiss fervently, almost making them fall off their bar stools. He knows Chuck would not taste of cheap alcohol and cruel intentions but if he closes his eyes, it is as close to kissing his best friend as Nate can ever hope to get. He gets another vodka to wipe Carter's taste off the roof of his mouth.

The gambling goes awry when Nate gets an 10,000 dollar clue about where Carter's real loyalties lay. Tempers flare. Shirts get torn.

By a twist of fate, Chuck arrives on his white horse of a yellow taxi, wielding his big wallet like he means it. One look at Nate all hot-headed and in distress and Chuck wants to lay waste to this place like a Genghis Khan to a small Central Asian country. True to the Bass brand of warfare, he strikes a deal with Carter. Exchanging the beautifully disheveled Nate for a Piaget watch and a Babe Ruth ball is not unlike that classic deal of buying Manhattan from the Indians. Nate is worth considerably more to him than this pinprick of an island but Chuck knows best to keep his poker face on. Carter Baizen is left to be drawn and quartered by the Queens denizens in the underground gambling club.

Chuck may have been the one who won this battle but it is Nate who feels like a knight. He is fresh from the fight, feeling testosterone and boy kissing on his tongue. It is not a bitter aftertaste but a refreshing eye-opener.

From the back of the taxi, they are looking at the Monday morning of those Manhattanites who are unfortunate enough to be employed. Chuck's arm finds Nate's shoulders and Nate lays his head in the crook of his elbow. Their affection is sparse but what counts is that is, somehow, alright to be held.

When they are back at the suite, it is noon. They face each other, ill at ease and hands in their pockets. Chuck's voice starts saying something about a rough night but Nate only hears how the raspy undertones hook under his heart and pull him in. He closes this last half-step between them and this is as decisive as Nate Archibald has ever been in his entire life.

His hand goes up and his thumb strokes the morning stubble on Chuck's jaw line. He leans in…

… and finds Chuck's mouth meeting him half-way. The first meeting of their parted lips is awkward but soon, they find a rough rhythm, their fingers splayed over each other's napes, both tongues claiming possession.

Chuck tastes like whiskey and peppermint and Nate has to be something equally addictive, the way Chuck is making needy sounds that Nate has rarely heard coming from that big bed of his.

Nate feels he is being maneuvered somewhere and he's somehow lost his shirt. His knees hit the back of the bed, the huge Chuck Bass bed of Babylon that Nate has always kept off as if it is cursed.

Now he is flying to sprawl on it. His pants are being dragged off his hips before his head hits the pillow. There are sounds of what seems to be Chuck ripping his own clothes off.

"Fuck, Nate," says Chuck, his voice breaking, as he is getting to straddle Nate's narrow hips which have more angles than he's used to. This is confusing but it makes Chuck feel hot. He growls over into Nate's mouth and they smother each other in another kiss, the urgency pulsing through.

Something smooth and hot brushes against Nate's aching cock and he almost freaks out as this is Chuck's dick, after all. And it's hard. This is hot and Nate is confused. He grunts and rolls Chuck over easily with his jock strength, landing on top.

This makes it both worse and better. Now they are flush against one another, panting in each other's faces, rubbing together to the noises of skin on skin. Chuck has more hair on his body, and this drives Nate particularly crazy. The sharp scent of arousal is in the air, and this is the only thing they both wear. This is real.

"Want to fuck you," keens Chuck, hands spreading the smooth halves of Nate's ass and his hips pushing up, out of control. Suave conversation has fresh gone out of him. If Chuck ever wanted anyone more, he cannot remember and if he has ever said he did, he lied.

"I don't know _how_," Nate is breathless and blushing an even deeper shade of red.

Good thing Chuck knows just a little bit more Thank secret gay porn viewing, extensive underage womanizing and looking for love in all the wrong places.

"Let me, Nate." Contrary to the popular belief, these infamous Chuck Bass words caring most about money, the pleasures money can bring and his friend Nathaniel are true. And right now, not necessarily in that order.

Nate raises his body on his elbows and slowly turns over as Chuck slides away from underneath him. Embers on ice, and something is gonna give.

In a minute, a palm is pressing Nate's broad chest into the pillows, as something else of Chuck's is pressing into Nate's ass. It's a finger and Nate's blue eyes are wide in surprise and a healthy amount of WTF. This turns out not as painful or long as anyone involved would have thought, and in a few minutes, Nate is arching off the bed, crying out, as Chuck keeps clumsily touching something inside him, with a half smile of awe. This is hot, and they are no longer confused.

When Chuck first tries to fuck Nate's hole, the instinct drives him too fast, too deep, too soon inside and Nate swears dirtier than anyone could expect of a golden boy. Ripped by pain, he throws a punch, and thankfully misses, then reaches out to place an apology on Chuck's swollen lips. They laugh and it is no longer awkward.

The next round, they go slower, and Chuck breathes obscenities like "open that ass" and "so tight baby." This is, embarrassingly enough, a real turn on but Nate asks to lay off the bad porn dialogue and just do it already. His fingers are screwing up the 800 thread count sheets, damp with their sweat.

When Chuck shuts him up with fucking in - hard - this becomes perfect. They rock together, gathering rhythm of their own, and their moving, entwined bodies are one.

For a long while after, they are a sated, sticky tangle of limbs.

Chuck actually holds Nate's hand for full five minutes and this is four minutes too long for a Bass to bear. Nate himself might be doing something as unnatural for a seventeen year old boy as cuddling.

Then, reality starts to creep in and they slowly drift apart.

"What are we going to do?" finally asks Nate, sitting cross-legged on the bed, across a sprawled Chuck who is studying the ceiling with a lot of interest.

"Don't think too much, Nate," Chuck asks quietly, shaking his head. He knows Blair's name is next off Nate's tongue and, with his armor off, this word may lethally wound him. "Don't think, don't think, don't think. Please. Do. Not. Think."

Nathan reaches out, confused. And this is when Chuck briskly pushes his friend's hand away, which is probably the most disinterested thing Chuck Bass has ever done. Because if Nate should not think, Chuck must. He has clearly drawn the short straw in their relationship. The crown prince of Upper East Side needs a villain to shine a guiding light back towards his fairytale castle with the view on the Park. The princess Blair and the riches await.

"We're going to rest," Chuck says with calm persuasion, now searching for Nate's china blue eyes. Nate is flushed, fucked out and gorgeous, and there is are teeth marks on his shoulder, but this is the only thing Chuck must _not_ think about.

"There would be no need for the soul searching when you wake up, Nathaniel. You had sex. With me. We both clearly enjoyed it. We have acted on misguided teenage sexual tension and the emotion of a late hour. Luckily, we're friends. This is where this stays, between us. I trust you, Nate, not to let it mess things up for yourself. I trust you."

This is why Chuck is a true Bass. He knows how the world goes around. Must he really explain the _why_ or the _gay_ of it all - to you or to Nathaniel? The master plan does not allow for deviancy or deviations. Blair's father and his male model lover are not exactly a hot item in on the Most Powerful list. Chuck has far better laid plans for him and Nathaniel than a lifelong exile off Manhattan, this pinprick center of the big world.

Besides, Nate has trouble choosing between the color of socks in the morning. How about a choice between propriety and passion? Gay rainbow or proper tartan? Like a child of five, Chuck is afraid Nate is not going to pick his yellow racing car if the push comes to shove. The Ken doll would be the right, Archibald thing to do.

Nate is staring back with what clearly is anger. His eyes glint as he silently stands up and goes away to the Siberia of a familiar leather couch. The golden boy is as graceful as loser as he is a winner.

Behind Nate's proud back, Chuck's face is anguished. He is unaware of Nate watching him break, through his long lashes in the already broken reflection on the window.

In what feels like hours later, the couch gives under the double weight of guilt and thought. As Chuck leans his steamy forehead into the cool back of Nate's neck, the dark hair and the blond hair mesh.

Nate can practically hear Chuck trying _not_ to think but he is done with asking questions. He texts Blair, postponing but not cancelling their dinner date, as the fingertips of his other hand tap a different tune on Chuck's bare hip. This is the easiest, Nate Archibald thing to do. Two can keep a secret if one of them plays dead.

\---

_Spotted: two best friends who are better off as lovers? Email me with your vote. You know you love me._

 

XOXO, Gossip Girl.


End file.
